Monday

Learn With Sesame Street


123 Sesame Street is an impressive learning site. There are games, videos, recipes, crafts, and more. You can browse games by subject. There are a lot of games for beginning readers.
Sesame Street's characters make learning fun. Sesame Street also has some great books. My kids love There's a Monster at the End of This Book. I've found this to be a favorite of other families through some discussions I've started in various groups. Most libraries have a copy. There's a sequel called Another Monster at the End of This Book. I plan to get my hands on a copy soon.

Grover is my kids' favorite character. They are getting older and still love books with him as the main character. Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum kept my kids busy for hours. They loved having it read to them and spent time searching through it themselves. They worked on reading the labels of objects while enjoying the book on their own.

Here are two Sesame Street Books I recommend for young children:

Elmo's Big Lift-And-look Book (Sesame Street) (Great Big Board Book)
Monster Faces (Sesame Street) (A Chunky Book(R))

Please share a Sesame Street book or a game from the Sesame Street Learning site that you like in a comment.
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Sunday

Information for Parents Teaching a Child to Read

I've reviewed these sites. I think you'll find helpful information. Leave a comment and let me know your favorites.

Reading is Fundamental - Tips and Tricks

Reading Rockets - Tips for Parents

Reading Rockets - Launching Young Readers

Reach Out and Read for Parents and Educators

Free Parent Brochures by Jim Trelease
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Saturday

Teach Reading Comprehension With 7 Keys to Comprehension


I purchased the book, 7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It! by Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins.
This books gives parents and teachers practical ways to improve a child's reading comprehension. I focus a lot on learning to read and decode words on my blog. There is so much more to becoming a successful reader. 7 Keys to Comprehension clearly defines and shows ways to teach the complicated thinking processes involved in reading.

The 7 keys are:
1. Create mental images.
2. Use background knowledge.
3. Ask questions.
4. Make inferences.
5. Determine the most important ideas or themes.
6. Synthesize information.
7. Use "fix-up" strategies.

The book shows ways to help preschool readers, emerging readers, and advancing readers develop the 7 keys listed. There are also classroom connection ideas for teachers. I love that this book is geared toward parents. Parents are powerful teachers. We have numerous opportunites to teach our children in a relaxed environment. The challenge is usually how do we teach.

I've started using some of the ideas from 7 Keys to Comprehension with my three children ages 9, 7, and 7. We are reading Socks by Beverly Cleary. Our current focus is on creating mental images. Beverly Cleary's writing provides us with great images. I plan to sprinkle in the other keys while reading this book. I'm already noticing an increased interest from my children. I love hearing their mental images.
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Friday

Help My Child Read: Reading Resources from the U.S. Department of Education


Check out this link today. http://www2.ed.gov/parents/read/resources/edpicks.jhtml You'll find downloadable publications to help teach a child to read.

You may also want to check out the pages at the top of my blog for more free resources. There are links to online reading games, links to online stories, and a collection of reading resources.

Share other good reading resources, online reading games, or online story sites in a comment. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
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Sunday

Playing With Words

Once a child knows letter sounds and can blend the sounds together, the child will benefit from substituting sounds in words to make new words. Magnetic letters work great for this activity.

Check out this link to see a demonstration.

Check out these other magnetic letter activities.
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